Recession claims 651,000 new US victims

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 13:57:04 GMT      |    PressTV

Americans line up to talk to job recruiters at a career fair in Los Angeles. The US lost 651,000 jobs in February alone, the worst monthly loss since 1949.

More than 650,000 Americans lost their jobs in February as US employers feel the strain of an ailing economy, the Labor Department says.

Some 651,000 jobs were shed in February alone as the unemployment rate in the US reached 8.1 percent -- its highest in 25 years--, a Labor Department report revealed on Friday.

Job losses were spread across nearly all major industries with economists saying that they see no end to the recession in sight.

More Americans have lost their jobs every month since January 2008, creating a decline in payroll employment of about 4.4 million, with more than half having occurred in the last 4 months.

According to CNN, the February drop marked the worst six-month job purge since the end of World War II.

The US officially slipped into a recession in December 2007; however, its impact was disguised by an emergency tax rebate introduced by the administration of former US president George W. Bush last spring.

The erratic decline, economists say, turned into a full-out plunge on almost every front since September 2008, followed by a sharp fall in all economic indicators.